Sunday’s gospel tells the Gentile Christmas story. The word Gentile refers to all people who are not Jews. It is the word in Hebrew for the nations. The magi are from the East, perhaps from Persia; they are not Jewish.
The magi are learned seekers who study the stars. They are questioners. In Matthew’s gospel the magi represent all the people who search for God in the created world—in our own being and in life that is and surrounds us.
The magi observe a new star in the heavens, in the natural world. Their questions about the meaning of this new star lead them into a new land among a new people. When they find the child Jesus, they worship him and take home with them the good news that his coming is for all the people of the world.
Some theologians refer to creation as the first book of revelation. The Old and New Testaments report how God acted in Israel’s history and has come among us in Jesus. Creation is not a book, but creation reveals God and leads us to question where we come from and where we are going.
The first book of the bible, Genesis, describes God speaking and earth, sky, sea, land, sun, moon, stars, and all creatures coming into being. The last book of the bible, called Revelation, describes the new heavens and new earth when Jesus will come again in glory. In Christian faith God is our beginning and our end.
Scientists today tell a new creation story about how all that is has unfolded from the first great flashing forth 13.7 billion years ago.
5 BILLION years ago the sun and solar system were born.
4 BILLION years ago life began on Earth.
2 BILLION years ago Earth’s oxygen atmosphere developed.
1 BILLION years ago simple life forms began to reproduce.
700 MILLION years ago multicelluar life forms emerged; then fish, insects, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals.
2.6 MILLION years ago the first humanoids developed.
40,000 YEARS ago homo sapiens sapiens evolved.
2,000 YEARS ago Jesus was born.
If we fit the whole history of the universe within one year, humanoids evolve on the last day and homo sapiens sapiens at 11:58.36, the last few seconds of the year. We humans are newcomers to unfolding, cosmic life.
As life evolves, life forms grow increasingly complex and diverse. Every life form wants to be all it can be and more. Animals and plants have memory encoded in their genes that attunes them to their environment and what is necessary to live and thrive. Homo sapiens sapiens not only have instincts encoded in their genes but have become conscious. We know we know, which gives us our species name. Yet all that lives remains connected and interdependent. We live in a web of unfolding life 13.7 billion years old.
For Christians time is pregnant. We are in a birthing process. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome that all creation groans in the labor pains of bringing Spirit to birth (Romans 8.18- 24).
Christians see in Jesus a turning point in history—toward a new promise of sharing life with God. We see in Jesus what God is like. Jesus reveals love as the divine energy that holds together all that is. Jesus reveals God as a web of love relationships, three in one love—Father, Son, and Spirit.
God’s very being is love. God is an external exchange of love, Father, Son, and Spirit, and has destined us to share in that exchange.
Catechism of the Catholic Church #221